


Self Control

by little_murmaider



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Just like the show eeeeyyyyyyyy, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Playing kind of fast and loose with canon, Set during and after Doomstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-09-30 22:47:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10174142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_murmaider/pseuds/little_murmaider
Summary: Soon after Toki disappears, Nathan realizes Skwisgaar can't be left alone.





	

Nathan wasn’t the world’s most perceptive guy, but he realized soon after Toki was kidnapped Skwisgaar couldn’t be left alone.  
  
In the Dethsub after the funeral, he, Pickles and Murderface shouted a chorus of _who the fuck_ and _HOW the fuck_ and **_why_ ** _the fuck_ and **_WHAT THE FUCK_ ** . Skwisgaar said nothing, staring wall-eyed at the unoccupied seat opposite him. Charles, with a few assists from That Old Guy, spouted answers at a backbreaking clip. The screech of metal on metal brought discussion to a grinding halt. Chair pushed back, Skwisgaar breezed out without explanation. Nathan wasn’t sure what triggered his departure--safe money was on the combination of the words _Toki_ , _alive_ and _if_. The meeting continued, the mood muted.  
  
Once discharged, Pickles and Murderface darted out to hit the bar hard. Nathan joined, but fell out of step as a half-dozen klokateers sprinted past, hustling down the corridor where Skwisgaar had vanished. Curious and needing a distraction, he trailed them. Maybe his snooping would reward him with some violence--dismemberment always managed to cheer him up. What he found was less encouraging: Skwisgaar, on the docking bay, flanked by frantic klokateers, attempting to manually override the entry system. As the klokateers pried him away, Skwisgaar stretched his fingers to their full length, straining to hammer in the final digits of his exit code.  
  
“Master Skwigelf,” a servant pleaded, tugging at Skwisgaar’s arm. “If we don’t adhere to proper resurfacing protocol, this entire chamber will fill with water! We’ll sink!”  
  
The muscle memory of half a decade of tackling drills rushed over Nathan as he barrelled through the crowd. Lowering his shoulder, he locked arms around his narrow waist and drove him straight into the ground. Skwisgaar’s skull hit the floor with a sickening **_twack_ **. His body went limp. Nathan rolled off. The air went out of the room.  
  
Of course Nathan hadn’t killed him; just knocked him out for a moment. Which, hey, if it got him to stop fucking around with the exit port, so be it. Skwisgaar was escorted to sick bay for evaluation, and wasn’t seen until they resurfaced.    
  
Years of football taught Nathan to recognize concussion symptoms. He’d seen first hand how brain trauma could incite all sorts of wacky, uncharacteristic behavior in his teammates. Refrigerator-sized linebackers bursting into unprompted, uncontrollable sobbing. Effervescent running backs getting broody and mean. Honor roll wide receivers forgetting their class schedules. A head injury could account for Skwisgaar’s behavior once the band hit the ground running on their Inebriation World Tour. He moved about in a fog, responding when spoken to after a delay. He oscillated between icy stoicism and manic overcompensation. A concussion wasn't a perfect explanation (Skwisgaar’s mercurial nature was baked into his DNA) but it was a convenient excuse as any. Nathan dismissed it, kept drinking, waited for the effects to fade.  
  
Only it didn’t fade. Skwisgaar’s assholery continued unabated. In Rome he climbed into the Trevi fountain fully-clothed, did not leave until Nathan pulled him out by his hair. At a club in Marrakesh, a dance remix of a dumb pop song brought him to tears. While tripping off ayahuasca on the banks of the Amazon, he begged Nathan to punch him, full force, dead in the chest. Said there was a spider nest in his ribcage and the eggs were hatching; only way he could survive was if he _got it out_.  
  
All of which was pretty exhausting to be around. On a stopover at Mordhaus, Nathan decided to take matters into his own hands. Meaning: demand Charles fix it.  
  
Charles was very strict about prohibiting Dethklok from the Mordhaus war room. Then again, Nathan was very good at doing whatever the hell he wanted. Clutching the neck of a bottle of bourbon, Nathan bruised past the klokateers keeping guard.  
  
“ **Charles** ,” he bellowed, throwing aside klokateers like test dummies. “I need to, I need to fucking _talk_ to you. Right. **Now**.”  
  
“Apologies, my lord,” another klokateer muttered. “Master Explosion has requested an audience. He could not be deterred.”  
  
Perched in the center of the action, Charles swiveled his chair to face him. He looked rough. The room’s red glow made his dishevelment more obvious. (In Charles’ case, _disheveled_ was a single hair falling out of lock-step, a barely-loosened tie.) His gaze flitted down, then back.  
  
“Been, ah, drinking pretty heavily, have you.”  
  
“No.” Noticing the bottle in hand, he tossed over his shoulder. There was a _thunk_ as it collided with the skull of a klokateer, who collapsed into a pool of glass and blood. “I mean, not _now_.”  
  
“Nathan, I’m very busy, so unless this is urgent–”  
  
“Hey,” Nathan interrupted. “Hey. _Heeeeeeeey_. You, uh, you found Toki yet?”  
  
Charles mouth set in a firm line. “ _Clearly_ I have not, so if you please--”  
  
“Oh, well, that blows. Isn’t that, like, your _job_?”  
  
“Yes it is, Nathan.”  
  
“It’s like, what the fuck am I even paying you for…”  
  
“Is there a reason why you’re here?” Charles snapped, pinching the bridge of his nose.  
  
“Oh, wait, yeah. Skwisgaar’s being a dick.”  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
This was a common complaint lodged against Skwisgaar. Nathan needed to be more specific.  
  
“He’s getting too fucked up and being a real buzzkill. So just, make him cut the shit. Thanks. Okay bye.”  
  
“Need I remind you that _all_ of you have been, ahem, using to excess as of late?”  
  
Nathan tripped over his own foot, tried to disguise it as some type of jig. “Sure, but me, Pickles and Murderface are just trying to have a good time, you know? We’re not, like, trying to _escape_ something.”  
  
“Hmm.” Charles sized him up, dropping his chin into his palm. “Nathan, if you’re so concerned about Skwisgaar--”  
  
“Ugh, _concerned_ ? Don’t be gay. The only thing I’m _concerned_ about is my bottom line.” He lurched forward. Planting his hands on either armrest, he leaned in close, putting the bass in his voice. “It’s gonna be a fucking PR nightmare to replace **two** guitarists. You feel me?”  
  
Charles pressed a single finger between Nathan’s eyebrows. With minimal effort, he shoved him backwards until he stumbled into an upright position.  
  
“Regardless. All our resources are being diverted to locating Toki. If you feel Skwisgaar needs additional supervision, the onus is on you to take action.”  
  
He deeply regretted throwing away that bourbon.  
  
“You’re a shitheel, man.”  
  
“Noted.” He recentered his seat. “You know where to find the door.”    
  
With little other options, Nathan trolled the halls of Mordhaus. Skwisgaar was such a dick. If he was upset about something why couldn’t he just do a bunch of whippets and smash a grandfather clock like a normal person? Whether he wanted it or not, Skwisgaar was his _problem_ ; time to find the piss-baby and slap the attitude out of him. He found said piss-baby on his knees outside the rec room, hurling his brains out. Nathan groaned. Squatting beside him, he pulled back his hair in one meaty mitt.  
  
“You wanna pull yourself together? If the press catches wind of your little drama queen death spiral we’re fucked.” Skwisgaar retched in response. “I’m getting real sick of babysitting you.”  
  
“Who de fucks asked **YOUS** ?” He choked. Wiping his mouth with the heel of his hand, he rocked back to sit on his legs but missed, fumbling into the opposite wall. “Am nots a fucking _child._ ”  
  
“You’re sloppy, and erratic, and you’re a major bummer to be around.”  
  
Skwisgaar’s head lolled back. Muddled somewhere in his bleary-eyed expression was a flickering flame of disgust.  
  
“Oh _wowee_ , dat must bes _real_ tough for yous. Lets me pulls out a solid golds hero’s medal awards outs my butthole for your _bravery_ and _valor_ , you shit tits.”  
  
Nathan had been in enough fights to know when he was being baited. Still, Skwisgaar’s fuckery had taken its toll. He did not enjoy contemplating his fleeting mortality every half hour. His patience running out, Nathan just wanted him to shut up.  
  
“Jesus Christ, you sound just like Toooooooooo–.”  
  
He felt the shockwaves of his fuck-up _immediately_ , the second Skwisgaar’s face cracked open and Nathan saw the roiling, molten despair beneath the surface. The name poured from him like a river of blood, pooling between them, rising up the walls, soaking into their clothes and sloushing down their throats and filling their lungs and _why the fuck was he still saying it_.  
  
“–kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. Fuck.”  
  
“ **Fuck** yous.”  
  
“I’m not drunk enough to deal with this.”  
  
“Fuck **_yous_ **.”  
  
Skwisgaar crumbled into a heap. Nathan flagged down a nearby Klokateer, who had been surveying the scene out of sight.  
  
“Hey can you take care of...this?” He gestured vaguely at Skwisgaar. “Just, like, get him to bed and make sure he doesn’t choke on his own vomit.”  
  
The Klokateer grabbed at Skwisgaar’s elbow but Skwisgaar flailed, uppercutting him right in his hooded visage.  
  
“Don’ts fucking **TOUCH MES**.”  
  
Nathan moved to depart. Reaching the end of the hall, he glanced back. Something churned within him. Something dark. Something he didn’t want to unpack.  
  
“Uh, for what it’s worth, I don’t think Charles would be looking this hard if he thought Toki had….hamburger timed.”  
  
“Get de fucks out of heres,” Skwisgaar whimpered. So he did.  
  
When Nathan was a kid, his dog used to follow his mom all around the house. Whatever room she ventured in, there he was, obediently scampering underfoot. The dog’s name was Killer, but she always called him Her Little Shadow. Nathan thought of that dumb mutt a lot in the following weeks. Some time later, he and the others lounged beneath a cabana on a beach somewhere. Maybe it was Bali, maybe it was the Jersey Shore, who the fuck could keep track anymore. Pickles chatted up a local while a passed-out Murderface drooled onto an outdoor chaise. Skwisgaar hovered in Nathan’s periphery, staring outward to the inky blackness of the ocean. He stood and marched stiffly toward it.  
  
Nathan leapt to his feet. “Where you going?”  
  
“Walks.”  
  
Nathan growled, trotting after him. Skwisgaar scoffed, but kept his eyes forward.  
  
“Ain’ts you sick of _babysitting_ mes?”  
  
Nathan didn’t dignify that with an answer. He followed him out near the water’s edge, where they both sat. The undulating rush of the ocean was the only sound between them.  
  
“Does you still dreams about whales?” Skwisgaar asked, eyes trained on the foaming waves. The question caught Nathan off guard.  
  
“Uh. Yeah. Kind of. Not so much anymore.”  
  
Skwisgaar nodded. He raked the sand beneath his palm into a small mound. “For mes it ams birds.”  
  
Nathan was silent as Skwisgaar spoke of the dream that plagued him for months, every night identical to the last. He stands in a desolate wasteland, the dry earth cracked beneath his feet like veins. Before him stands a dead tree, its gnarled branches dark and weighted. At first he thinks they’re leaves, but a barrage of red, beady eyes pierce the blackness. The birds screech an unearthly cry, a cacophony of shrieks and whirrs and screams. Skwisgaar recognizes it as a warning, but cannot comprehend its meaning. A small brown rabbit scurries along the horizon. Its ears are so long, they drag behind its fragile little body. In a whirl of wings and feathers, the birds rise like smoke, moving as a singular solid black mass. Skwisgaar thinks they’re coming for him, but they swoop beyond him. They swarm the rabbit. Skwisgaar tries to reach the rabbit, to break up the birds, but he is too slow. When he finally arrives, the birds dissipate into smoke. All that remain are the rabbit’s glittering bones.  
  
Eyes adjusted to the darkness, Nathan noticed the hem of Skwisgaar’s shirt had come undone from the back of his pants. He cinched the fabric between his thumb and index finger. Skwisgaar exhaled a short, derisive breath through his nose. He raised his fist.  
  
“I amn’ts goingk to kills myself, Nathan.”  
  
The grains of sand filtered slowly from his gradually loosening grip.  
  
“You cannots kills what ams alreadies dead.”  
  
In some alternate timeline, where everything wasn’t so _heavy_ , Nathan punched him in the shoulder and told him to lighten up. He made a _Hamlet_ reference, which went over Skwisgaar’s head. He called him a drama queen to get a rise out of him, which it did. Skwisgaar’s sputtering denial only proved Nathan’s point, and the walk back was punctuated by Skwisgaar’s indignant yips and Nathan’s laughter. The tension diffused. Skwisgaar was fine. Toki was fine. Everything was fine.  
  
But none of that happened. He tightened his hold on Skwisgaar's shirt, buried his fist in the sand.  
  
It took a not-insignificant amount of time for him to _get_ it. Maybe he should have gotten it after that conversation on the beach. _Probably_ he should have gotten it after the rescue, when Skwisgaar ugly-cried into Toki’s hair, apologizing with such fervency he dissolved into unintelligible, half-Swedish nonsense. Toki pawed dumbly at Skwisgaar’s face and wrists, mumbling his name like a confession until he was a blubbering mess, the both of them locked in mutually assured, weepy destruction. Very unmetal. (But also, Pickles was crying, too, but it wasn’t, like, a thing. So was Murderface, whatever, no big deal. And fine maybe so was he but you know what he wasn’t on trial here.)  
  
But nope. He didn’t really, truly _get it_ until a random night back at Mordhaus, a few days before their big show. He was on the hunt for snacks when he heard a rustling in the living room. Something gave him pause, made him linger out of sight behind the doorframe. Toki sat cross legged on the ground, a video game controller in hand and tongue peeking between his lips in concentration. Skwisgaar sat on the couch behind him, chin perched on Toki’s head, arms hanging slack over his shoulders. That itself wasn’t odd--all of them had been pretty handsy with Toki since they were reunited. But this wasn’t a friendly backslap, a _good to have you back bro_ shoulder squeeze. Skwisgaar’s fingers skittered up and down Toki’s upper arms, sporadically pinching at the insides of his armpits. Toki squealed each time.  
  
“Quits it, Skwisgaar! I’s trying to beats dis levels!”  
  
“Buts I needs attention.”  
  
“I beens giving yous attention all days!”  
  
“Ja, buts, I needs _more_ .” His hands made a lazy course across Toki’s chest. “It _sustains_ mes.”  
  
“Aw, dang! De princess ams in another ones castle!”  
  
“Oh, ams you done?” He asked, voice drenched in faux innocence. “Greats, gives to me attention.”  
  
Knocking the controller aside, Skwisgaar poured himself into Toki’s lap, nuzzling his face into the crook of his neck. Which was a little weird, them being so close, pressing together their hands and bodies and faces and _oh wait maybe this wasn’t a platonic interaction._  
  
“I thoughts I gets used to dis by nows, you beings dis way,” Toki said as Skwisgaar nipped at his jaw and neck.  
  
“You wants mes to stop?”  
  
“I don’ts t’ink you _cans_ stop. I t’inks dis touchy-feely guys who wants kisses all de times is who you ams now.”  
  
He yelped when Skwisgaar pinched him again.  
  
“You gones so long I forgets how annoying you ams. But you reminds me a little everys day.”  
  
“Maybe next time you start treatings mes bad I just go missings and gets you all worked up and lovey-dovey agains.”  
  
From his position, Nathan couldn’t see Skwisgaar’s face. He only saw its reflection in Toki’s, the playfulness washed out of his expression.    
  
“I don’ts like whens you says t’ings like dat,” Skwisgaar said softly.  
  
“It was supposed to bes a jokes,” Toki answered, tucking Skwisgaar’s hair behind his ears. “You knows, like funny hahas. I’m okays, sees? I’m okays, please don’t looks at me dat ways.”  
  
They kissed again, slower, and Nathan thought he’d seen enough.  
  
The next morning he caught Skwisgaar in the kitchen, sporting a pair of colorful fleece pajama bottoms, the cuffs stopping short well above his ankles. He tipped his chin toward Nathan in greeting, loading up a plate with waffles, cinnamon buns, toast and other assorted breakfast items. On the counter, steam coiled out from identical mugs.  
  
“So you and Toki.” Nathan saw no need for subtlety. “That been going on for a while?”  
  
Skwisgaar bit back a smirk the way he did when he was about to lie but decided against it. Nathan hated that he knew him well enough to know that. Well, he hated that he didn’t hate it more.  
  
“Less dan you woulds t’ink, but ah. It’s been kinds of a, whats you calls it? Slow burns?”  
  
“Pretty sure there’s a cream for that.”  
  
“What? Noes, I means like, whens it takes a long time to gets to wheres somet’ing needs to bes? But it takes so long dat whens you gets deres it’s way betters?”  
  
He hesitated, gnawing at his lower lip. The flipside to their ease in silence was their inability to express genuine emotion. Nathan braced himself for sincerity.  
  
“By de ways…” he coughed, crossing his arms. “T’anks for, erm, keeps-ding an eye on mes, I guess.”  
  
Nathan shrugged. “Yeah, well, I couldn’t let you walk into a jet engine or something. Would have really complicated the next tour.” He paused. “You really lost it, dude.”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
“You must, uh,” he rolled his eyes and grumbled, “love him a lot, or whatever.”  
  
The wild grin that split his face was answer enough.  
  
“It’s weirds, we bof felts it for so longs and neither of us says it.” His smile dimmed and he glanced off, rubbing the back of his neck. “Ones of us didn’t says it.”  
  
“And now?”  
  
“I can’ts stop. It like I’m nots even mes anymore. I’m dis new guy, and dat guy t’inks about being together forevers and getting olds and dying in each others arm.” He scrunched his nose. “It’s fucking gross.”  
  
“I wasn’t gonna say anything cause you seem happy, but yeah, that’s lame as hell.”  
  
“I thought I knows what happy was befores, but like, _holy shit_ dudes. You knows what I means?”  
  
The funny thing was, he did.

 


End file.
